


Meet the Parents

by wheel_pen



Series: Alice [27]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Naughtiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark’s biological parents have some thoughts about Alice. This story is unfinished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet the Parents

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Alice, my original female character, is new in Smallville. There is something special about her, and she and Clark form a relationship.
> 
> 2\. This series starts after the end of the second season—after the destruction of the spaceship and Clark abruptly leaving town.
> 
> 3\. Underage warning: This story may contain human or human-like teenagers, in high school, in sexual situations.
> 
> 4\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

Clark was halfway down the hall to trigonometry when the familiar high-pitched noise exploded in his head. _Don’t freak out, don’t freak out,_ he begged himself, but he couldn’t help the hiss of pain as the whine stabbed through his brain like an icepick. Clark stumbled into the row of lockers along the wall, hand to his ear like he could block out the shrieking sound, books spilling all over the hallway.

“Clark?” Alice was at his side instantly, confusion and concern in her voice and her hands as she took his arm.

He shook his head randomly. “I have to go,” he told her through gritted teeth. “I have to go to—“

Alice nodded her understanding quickly. “I’ll come, too.”

“No!” The drone of his biological father calling to him seemed to vibrate with fury. Funny, he’d never given it an emotion before. But he knew he definitely didn’t want Alice anywhere near Jor-El if he was in a bad mood about something. “No,” Clark repeated firmly, until Alice seemed to agree. “I’ll go alone.”

She stepped back to let him by, and Clark ran as quickly as he could without superspeed, past the startled students filling the hallway. As soon as he was out of their sight he would blur back to the farm for the key, then to the caves. In his opinion the Kryptonian paging system could use a lot of work.

Alice waited until most of the students had resumed their normal paths to class, then discreetly pulled out the dent Clark had made in the locker doors. She thought about staying at school, going on to class, checking in with Clark later to see what Jor-El wanted... and then she dismissed that thought as ridiculous and followed him.

 

Octagonal key in one hand, flashlight in the other, Clark pressed through the caves, careful not to brush any of the ancient drawings with his clothing. Lex had, it seemed, never bothered to install security equipment down here, which Clark found extremely odd. He didn’t dare _ask_ about it, of course, lest he raise Lex’s suspicions any more than they already were. But still, every time Clark checked, there was no sign of any cameras, microphones, or any other kind of recording device.

“Okay, I’m here, already!” Clark told the cave wall, uncurling his fingers from around the metal key. The shiny eight-sided figure rose gracefully from his hand and floated purposefully towards the matching hole in the wall, fitting itself in flawlessly. The symbols on the edges of the key began to glow, then the symbols etched into the stone around the indentation burst with light, chasing each other in rings, changing and mutating from one shape to another too quickly for Clark to follow. A stream of blinding white light burst forth from the wall and Clark raised his hand to shield his eyes, surprised that it was necessary. Wasn’t Jor-El pouring it on a little thick today?

“Jor-El, I’m here!” Clark repeated, his voice tinged with both irritation and worry. “What do you want?”

“You have defied me for the last time, Kal-El!” His biological father’s voice thundered in the cave, flooding his mind as well as his ears. And he sounded _p—sed_.

“What are you talking about?” Clark asked in confusion. “What’s wrong?” Had Lex’s research team finally tripped something in the cave that Jor-El felt threatened by? Clark could barely think to come up with possibilities, not with the light and the sound overwhelming him.

“I have told you many times, Kal-El, that you are our last hope, you are our last son, you will preserve the legacy of our race, and at every turn you defy me!” The words were seething, full of barely-contained rage; Clark had never heard Jor-El speak like that before. “These pitiful humans you care for stand in the way of your greatness, Kal-El, and you will be stronger once you are separated from them!”

_Please, please don’t let him start this again,_ Clark thought desperately, the panic already rising in his throat. He realized he truly didn’t know the extent of Jor-El’s power—he seemed to work mainly through manipulation, but if he could reach outside the cave and harm someone—Jonathan, Martha, Alice, Lex, Chloe, Pete, Lana—

“What are you going to do!” Clark demanded, squinting into the light. He struggled to stand, feeling as though he were buffeted by gale-force winds. “Leave them alone, they have nothing to do with this—“

“You will leave this place, Kal-El, and you will find the mate meant for you, and you will preserve the legacy of our race, rule over all this Earth as the gods you are to them—“

“No!” Clark felt himself blasted back against the opposite wall, pinned there by a greater power than he’d ever felt before. Terror crushed his lungs, threatened to black out his vision. “Why are you doing this! Leave them alone!”

A focused beam of light shot from the center of the wall straight towards Clark’s chest. He knew the burning would begin milliseconds before he felt it, and somehow that made it worse. “The mark of our house, Kal-El,” Jor-El continued coldly, dispassionately. “You have worn it before. You will wear it again, until you remember who your _true_ father is.” Clark howled, the beam of light searing his flesh, blackening the cotton of his flannel shirt until he ripped it open, as if that would reduce the pain at all, take away the horrible sensation of his skin bubbling from the heat, reforming the scar he’d carried in Metropolis—

And then the pain stopped. And the light wasn’t shining right in his eyes anymore. Shuddering, gasping for air he normally didn’t need, Clark forced his eyes open and saw a figure standing between him and the cave wall, blotting out the light that had burned him. A head turned back to check on him, and a fresh wave of fear clutched at him.

“Alice! Don’t! Get out!” Clark ordered, though it sounded more like pleading when it finally came out of him.

Instead Alice faced the light again, back straight, fists balled at her sides. “Stop it!” she demanded, her voice hardened steel. Clark’s legs gave out underneath him and he sagged to the ground. “Don’t you _dare_ put that mark on him again.”

“Alice, please, he can—he’ll—“

“Who speaks to me this way?” Jor-El boomed.

“Don’t you remember me?” Alice sneered. _This is not going to end well,_ Clark thought helplessly. “Well you’d _better_ from now on.” She stalked closer to the wall, to the scorching light. “You _ever_ hurt Clark again, and I will take this cave down _rock by rock_.” Clark almost didn’t recognize the voice as hers, and yet somehow it was almost... _primal_ Alice, steady and fierce and unyielding. “I will hurl them into space to join the _rubble_ left from the planet you destroyed.” Clark had absolutely no doubt that she would do exactly that. “Do you understand me?” Clark shivered. He was almost afraid _for_ Jor‑El.

“You have no power over me,” Jor-El scoffed.

“Don’t I.” It was not a question. Clark’s eyes widened in shock as Alice’s fists began to glow yellowish, sparks snapping up and down them like a live wire, and the cave rocked as an earthquake shook it. Small pebbles and sand tumbled down the wall onto Clark.

“Alice...” he breathed, almost too stunned to think. What the _h—l_ could she do?

Suddenly the light dropped down to a normal level, the shaking stopped, and Clark felt his strength returning as the roar died away. He scrambled quickly to his feet and moved to stand beside Alice, taking her hand—which was fortunately no longer glowing and sparking.

“You have passed the test,” Jor-El announced in a smug tone, his voice echoing in the suddenly silent cave.

“The-the _what_?” Clark sputtered. He rubbed his chest where the beginnings of his scar ached and found—nothing, no burn.

“You f-----g b-----d,” Alice hissed, lunging for the key. Clark grabbed her around the waist and shoulders just in time, holding her back before she really _did_ rip the cave to pieces.

“The female has proven herself a worthy companion to you, Kal-El,” Jor-El continued in a conversational tone—as conversational as he got, that is.

Clark’s eyebrows shot up, and he didn’t dare look at Alice’s face. “You just—this was just to test _Alice_?”

“You cannot fulfill your destiny alone, Kal-El.” The alien voice sounded almost reasonable. “You must have a strong and loyal mate at your side, to protect you.”

“Uh—to— _what_?”

“The test is over,” Jor-El finished, as usual ignoring anything resembling an explanation. “That is all. You may go now.”

The light suddenly extinguished, leaving them in the shadowy darkness of the cave, Clark’s flashlight tossed aside somewhere. He dimly saw the key float away from the wall and felt it lodge in the pocket of his torn shirt, innocent and slightly warm. They were still for a moment, then Clark chanced a whisper: “Alice?”

His arms stayed wrapped around her and she gripped them, hard. “Clark,” she finally asked, in a tone only superhearing could detect, “what the h—l just happened?”

Clark felt like laughing with relief, but he started with grinning and nuzzling her ear. “I think you just kicked my dad’s a-s,” he told her, chuckling shakily.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought...” Clark felt her start to go limp in his arms and grabbed her before she could hit the ground.

“Alice? Alice!” Had Jor-El done something to her after all?

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she insisted weakly, trying to stand. Her legs couldn’t seem to stay straight. “Holy s—t, Clark,” Alice sighed, giving in and leaning on him.

Clark scooped her up and carried her through the passageways up the surface. The bright sunlight made him feel even better, erasing everything but the memory of the pain. And he couldn’t stop smiling. “You saved me, Alice,” he told her, beaming. “You saved me.”

“Yeah, well, your dad really ticked me off,” Alice grumbled awkwardly. “You can—you can put me down now.”

Clark reluctantly let her feet slide back to the ground but kept her tight against him. “He also seems to think you’re my mate,” Clark added teasingly, nipping at her lips.

“Um, I’m a little young for mating, Clark,” Alice warned, pulling back a bit.

The teenager wasn’t dissuaded. “I know, I know,” he assured her, “but—honestly, Alice, _no one_ has ever stood up to him like that.” Clark finally let the smile fade back and looked at her determinedly. “How did you make the—earthquake? And your hands were—glowing...”

Alice shook her head. “I don’t know, Clark, I really don’t—I’ve never been so _angry_ before...” She looked more than a little distressed, tears starting to well up in her deep blue eyes.

Clark pulled her even closer, rubbing his hand in soothing circles over her back. “Shhh, it’s okay, Alice,” he whispered in her ear. “You were—amazing, just—beautiful and powerful and—really d—n scary...”

She laughed a little bit, unsteadily, and rested her head on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” she asked after a moment, brushing her hand over his bare chest where the burn should have been.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he replied, lacing his fingers through hers. He could feel his heart thumping under their hands. “Are you?”

Alice sniffed but nodded. “Yeah.”

Clark grinned again and gave into his impulse to kiss her, deeply, until he started to get dizzy and had to pull away. He wanted to suggest that they make their _own_ earthquake, right there in the grass, but she still looked a little freaked out by the whole incident so he just hugged her close. He wondered how his parents were going to take all this. Probably not much better...

 

*******

Clark first became aware of the sound in the middle of French class, although he realized it had been occurring for some time before that. Although he took a cursory glance around the room, instinct told him that the noise was one only he could hear, lodged somewhere in the corners of his alien brain. Instinct also told him it was the key calling for him again, although the sound was more of a low, gentle hum, not the vicious screech of the day before or even the usual high-pitched whine.

The noise wasn’t painful, but it _was_ distracting, and as soon as the bell rang Clark stuffed his books in his locker and snuck out of the building. He knew Alice would be worried if he didn’t show up for physics next period, but despite her extremely impressive dressing-down of Jor-El twenty-four hours earlier, Clark _still_ didn’t want her hanging around the caves. Ordained mate or not, Clark didn’t want to risk Jor-El getting angry and zapping her into zombie-hood like he had Dr. Walden.

With superspeed he was at the caves, with the key, in less than five minutes, and again the octagonal metal piece fit itself into the wall, kicking off the laser-light show. This time, however, the light that emanated from the symbols was a warm yellow, like sunlight intensified, and Clark found himself closing his eyes to better appreciate its soothing glow washing over him.

“Kal-El, my son.” Clark’s eyes snapped open. It wasn’t Jor-El who had addressed him this time. It was a woman.

“Who are you?” he breathed, although he felt like he already knew.

“I am Lara,” the gentle voice replied. “I am your mother.”

For a moment Clark was speechless. He had been so consumed by Jor-El’s motives and powers over the last few years that he really hadn’t given much thought to his biological mother, although he had assumed she existed. Despite the lump he felt rising in his throat he told himself not to be too hopeful—the comforting warmth he felt in the presence of her memory could, perhaps, be deceptive.

“My mother...” he repeated dully. Clark swallowed hard and tried to think rationally. “Have you always been... in there?”

“Yes, my son,” she told him, her voice patient as though they had all the time in the world to chat. “My memory and my will have watched you, watched and waited.”

Clark shook his head to clear it. “You watched, you—you watched Jor-El?” he asked, plaintively. He had known this person—in a sense—for all of two minutes, and he could already feel his heart breaking with disappointment at her behavior. “When he—“ Clark rubbed his chest reflexively, feeling the memory of the burn. “—threatened everyone—“ What mother would have stood by and let that happen?

Her voice sounded sorrowful. “My son, I am so sorry for the pain you have suffered, for the pain of those you care for.” Well. She _sounded_ sincere, anyway. “You are our last hope, the last hope of our house’s continuation in this universe. If your father was, perhaps, too harsh by those standards of Earth with which you were raised, know that his actions were intended only for the greater good, for the preservation of our race.”

Clark wasn’t so sure that was an acceptable explanation, but he didn’t want to get into an argument with his mother the first time he met her. He switched to a different subject. “Why are you just now speaking to me?”

He swore he could almost hear a smile in her voice, however rueful. “Your father Jor-El was much accustomed to educating, explaining...”

“And commanding?” Clark couldn’t help but add.

“Commanding as well,” Lara agreed, with some amusement. “But there are some subjects in which he conceded that, perhaps, my perspective would better serve our purpose.”

Clark had the feeling he was supposed to know what she meant, but he didn’t. “Like what?”

“Love, my son. You have found a mate.”

Clark really wished they wouldn’t use that word. “You mean Alice?”

“Indeed. She will be a most powerful and protective companion for you,” Lara confirmed proudly.

He decided to probe a little further. “Do you know why Alice has the powers she does?”

He could almost hear the amusement in Lara’s tone. “My son, I cannot give you the answers you seek about Alice. Though you may ask the question as many times as you like.”

Clark sighed. It was worth a try at least. He posed a different concern. “But Jor-El said my... mate would be ‘the one whom my heart has long desired,’” he reminded her. “I only met Alice a couple years ago.”

“You need not have known of her existence to desire her,” Lara told him, although that didn’t really make much sense to Clark. “Cast your mind back, Kal-El. I can see your earliest thoughts and memories. What do you first recall?”

Clark let his eyes drift shut, trying to work his way backwards through his mind. High school, junior high, elementary school, kindergarten. He had met Lana at the library when he was five, before he started attending public school. His mother—that was to say, his adoptive mother—had taken him there in the hopes that a large stack of books might keep him occupied while his only playmate, Pete, was sick with chickenpox. Going into town at all had been thrilling to young Clark—the constant rain had kept him cooped up in the house for several days, and he realized now he must have nearly driven his mother to distraction. Everything he’d done seemed to be wrong—he ran too fast in the house, he broke a cup squeezing it too tightly, he tipped the television set over onto himself trying to make it play _Sesame Street_. And his parents had been too busy doing chores—or scolding him, or cleaning up his messes—to play with him as much as he wanted. As he’d sat in the time-out chair after the television incident, he’d thought that more than anything, he wanted a friend who didn’t get sick, someone he didn’t have to be so careful around, someone he didn’t have to hide his gifts from—“Someone like me,” Clark said aloud, voice full of awe as he slowly opened his eyes.

“Your heart has long desired another like you,” Lara confirmed, sounding pleased that he had realized it.

Clark couldn’t help but try again. “Another like me... another person from Krypton?”

“Another like you, who understands your abilities and weaknesses, your thoughts and feelings,” Lara replied, just vaguely enough that Clark’s real question went unanswered.

He frowned. “I’m not sure _I_ even understand all that,” he admitted, and Lara laughed, her tone warm and musical.

“You will understand more in time, my son,” she assured him. “There is much for you to learn.”

This brought up another point in Clark’s mind, one he was reluctant to hear the answer to. “Do you, um...” He paused, then tried again. “Do you want me to conquer the world, too?”

There was a long moment of silence, then the voice sighed. “Kal-El, my son,” Lara began, and Clark thought she sounded sad, for some reason. “On Krypton your father and I were respected scientists, Jor-El a member of the governing council as well. But with all our knowledge, with all our power, with all the respect we commanded from those around us, we could not convince the Council that Krypton was on the verge of destruction.” Clark listened, awestruck; he and Jor-El had never really gotten around to chatting about “the old days” on Krypton—they were usually too busy trying to hurt or control one another. “Your father had to promise the Council that neither he nor I would attempt to leave the planet, or tell anyone of our... _opinions_.” She said the word bitterly. “We knew in our hearts that we would soon witness the destruction of our home, the death of everyone we loved—everyone, that is, but you, Kal-El.” Clark swallowed hard. “Your father had not explicitly promised that _you_ would remain on the planet... of course it was _assumed_ our newborn son would go where we went. But we could not take you to your death with us, Kal-El. So instead we sent you across the stars, that you might live, and be loved, and carry our people in your heart.”

Clark found himself leaning back against the opposite wall for support, eyes closed, trying to absorb this information. With all of Jor-El’s commands and threats and lectures about his ”destiny as the last son of Krypton,” Clark had never bothered to consider what it must have been like when his parents sent him away. If anything, he had always equated it with, of all things, Lex being shipped back to boarding school after his mother’s death—a form of abandonment, being pushed away from a difficult situation so his parents wouldn’t have to _deal_ with him. Now he saw it as more akin to the families in London who sent their children to the countryside during the Blitz of World War II—a gesture at once painful and protective.

“You, um, you didn’t answer my question,” Clark pointed out quietly, some time later.

Lara’s voice smiled. “My son, I think your father would have insisted you conquer _Krypton_ , had it survived to see you to manhood. He had great ambitions for you.”


End file.
